Monday, March 23, 2020

Mold-Art Rubber Mask Ad (40's)

I'm currently working on a larger post that I hope to have up in the next day or so. In the meantime, here's a neat version of the old Mold-Art rubber mask ad found in abundance in late 1940's comic books. I stumbled upon this one recently while flippin' through some of my golden age romance comics, and to be honest, I'm not sure I've ever come across this particular one in color before, (though I have seen it in black and white.) I have also seen color variations of it with the monkey, the idiot, and the clown mask in that glorious center illustration of the "mystery man" pulling some hilarious "monkey shines" on the gang-- but never in color and while masquerading as SATAN!



I totally wish I knew about this ad when I was putting my DEVIL TALES book together a few years back-- I would have most certainly included it!

5 comments:

Mr. Cavin said...

Well I didn't color it.

This is pretty neat. There are lots of effects in the cyan pass: the clown's eyes, the party girl's bow, even the cut lines around the order form. All those details are represented here by the colorist, not the inker. Definitely not usual for comics (but pretty normal for newspaper ads actually--maybe somebody was moonlighting?).

JMR777 said...

A devil mask for the lil' devil in each of us.

Do any of these masks still exist? I suppose these masks could be reproduced, though the reproductions would lack that aura, that specialness, the uniqueness of being one of the originals made back then and surviving to the present day.

JMR777 said...

Just curious, will the Satan mask become Karswell's new icon in the future?

Brian Barnes said...

Let me see, I could be a clown. Or Mickey Mouse! Or Satan! Or a Mins .... er ... I'll stick with the Devil.

Now to work "agog" into a conversation somewhere!

Mr. Karswell said...

>will the Satan mask become Karswell's new icon in the future?

I'm simply agog that someone would ask me that-- YESY YES!!